I’m becoming a GTD/.txt evangelist. Gina Trapani, blogger and geek extraordinaire, has written quite a lot about how to implement GTD and started the todo.sh community (now on github). Merlin Mann, also a blogger and geek extraordinaire, has written about GTD and general productivity at 43folders for a good long while. To improve my ability to get things done I’ve begun to adopt some of their techniques and suggestions. The most important thing I’ve discovered is to do what works for you. Your todo list does you no good if it’s not in a format you’re going to use. The same goes, of course, for all your other habits. The second most important thing I’ve discovered is todo.sh. I am getting the hang of using my todo list to keep on top of all my different tasks, and todo.sh is a major help. The third most important thing I’ve discovered is Dropbox. Of course, I discovered Dropbox months ago, but I’ve recently paired it with my todo.txt file. Now I can log in from my laptop, public terminal, or iPod (GoodReader plus the Dropbox extension is a thing of beauty) and instantly have a list of things I can do right now to be more productive.

The fourth most important thing I’ve discovered is to take some down time. A little recharge for a couple of hours every few days does a world of good (this goes double for students, who are usually living and working with no discernable divide). The fifth most important thing I’ve discovered is that GTD (even Gina’s amazing simplified GTD, which I use) takes some tweaking for ye olde college students. I’m hoping to sit down in the next few days and write out my own system (and I just added that to my todo.txt!). The most significant changes I’ve made are along the lines of Merlin Mann’s customizations.

I guess you could make Evernote the sixth most important thing I’ve discovered, but I’ve been using it for a while and it’s not really part of my todo routine. It does make me more productive, though, and it helps with all my creative endeavors. I tried using it for my todo list for a while, but the functionality isn’t quite where it needs to be across all platforms for it to make me happy. For now I’ll stick with my todo.txt and keep Evernote separate from my GTD.